A meeting of the minds yesterday at the Foothills Centennial Centre, as Sustainability Resources partnered with the Town of Okotoks hosted its Rural Innovation Forum.

Town staff, industry leaders, economic developers, academics, and technology innovators came together to discuss a number of topics regarding innovative, economical, and sustainable initiatives.

Jennifer Neufeld, Program Director with Sustainability Resources, says the forum was a collaboration, creating important relationships across sectors.

"The first thing that we're looking for people to take away is the opportunity to identify solutions to the challenges they face in their particular project or job," she says. "We have some curated networking and workshop sessions where they can identify those challenges, and then work together to try and give each other some ideas and solutions because there's a wide range of expertise in the room."

Attendees took in multiple presentations, and had the opportunity to participate in workshops sharing knowledge on project challenges, opportunities and resources.

Neufeld shares the forum also addressed how to take those ideas, and put them into action.

"We're going to be trying to address what resources are available and how we move our communities forward. We've got these problems and we've got these solutions, and now what do we need to make those happen? So mobilizing those opportunities to move those forward."

The Rural Innovation Forum was part of Sustainability Resources' Rural Prosperity Initiative, which addresses issues rural communities face while adopting sustainable solutions.

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